| Eugene Lashchyk, Scientific Revolutions, 1969 |
CHAPTER II
An Analysis of the Paradigm Concept and Its Role in Arguments for Theses 2, 3, 4, and 5
(A) What Is a Paradigm?
The problem of deciding what paradigms are in the SSR is complicated because they seem to be so many things in different contexts. Questions like the following arise: (1) Is there one kind of paradigm, or are there many different kinds of paradigms? (2) Precisely what type of entity is a paradigm? (3) Is there one paradigm for all of science or many paradigms, one for every scientific specialty? To answer these and other questions, I have proceeded in the following way. I have noted every place in which the word 'paradigm' is used in SSR. Furthermore, I have also noted those contexts where it is clear that paradigms are referred to but the word 'paradigm' was not used. Such contexts are important because one can usually find synonyms or other explications of the concept in question. After the data on paradigms were collected in the above fashion, it became clear that they can be classified into five clusters.
The first cluster I have labeled the scientific cluster -- C1 -- because paradigms are intended to serve as examples of normal scientific work. There are basically two stages of a paradigm in the scientific cluster:
(a) In its infantile stage a paradigm can be a solution to a group of outstanding problems (p. 44){1} or certain achievements recounted by textbooks which were sufficiently unprecedented to attract an enduring group of adherents away from competing modes of scientific activity. Simultaneously, it was sufficiently open-ended to leave all sorts of problems for the redefined group of practitioners to resolve. (p. 10) "The success of a paradigm . . . Lavoisier's application of the balance, is at the start largely a promise of success discoverable in selected and still incomplete examples." (p. 23)
(b) But with the development of a paradigm, with the solution of the various puzzles both theoretical and those involving nature-theory fit, a paradigm becomes a fully developed scientific theory. I will call this aspect "paradigm-theory".
Furthermore, there are also two different types of scientific paradigms:
(c) paradigms of narrow scope like Franklin's theory of electricity or Lyell's geological theory (p. 10) as well as
(d) paradigms of universal scope, analogous to basic theories -- such as Newtonian Physics or Einstein's theory of relativity. (In the scientific cluster paradigms are: "accepted examples of actual scientific practice which include law, theory, application and instrumentation" which are to serve as models for further research and problem solving (p. 10); a core of solved problems and techniques (p. 43); a tool capable of solving problems it defines (p. 76); things which provide a scientist with a map as well as directions essential for map making (p. 108).)
In the second cluster paradigms are said to determine the nature of science. Paradigms are not so much examples of actual scientific problem solving as they are the kinds of thing that determine what problems are scientific, what aspects must an adequate scientific theory possess, and what kinds of solutions will be called scientific rather than metaphysical. Let me call this the meta-scientific cluster -- C2. It is closely connected with the first cluster, and yet there is an extension of meaning not present in the scientific cluster. (In the meta-scientific cluster, paradigms are: constitutive of research activity (p. 108); constitutive of science; standards which distinguish a real scientific solution from a metaphysical one (p. 102).)
There is a clear shift in meaning between the first two clusters and the third cluster. Whereas the scientific cluster was characterized by such narrow and relatively precise concepts as an unprecedented achievement or as an example of solved problems that serve as standard illustrations for further problem solving, in this third cluster paradigms are constitutive of nature (p, 109), or of a world view as in the "mechanico-corpuscular" world view (p. 104). I think that this cluster can appropriately be labeled the metaphysical cluster C3. (Other uses of the term 'paradigms' in the metaphysical cluster are: with change of paradigm, scientists work in a different world (p. 120). I shall suggest a sense in which they (paradigms) transform the world (p. 105.) It tells the scientist about the entities that nature does and does not contain (p. 108).
When Kuhn states that paradigms determine a particular scientific tradition at times he does not mean that it is the particular constellation of ideas and solution to problems that in themselves define the tradition but that it is the charismatic influence of an individual scientist and of his published papers, book or textbooks that is responsible for the unity and coherence in a scientific tradition.{2} The authority which a paradigm exerts is not the authority or plausibility of an idea but the authority of a master or teacher. Thus, a peer group of scientists usually determines what is a scientific solution to a problem rather than a pseudo-scientific solution, what is to be published as results of scientific research, and what is to be classified as metaphysical speculation. When paradigms are referred to as entities of the above kind I have classified them in the sociological cluster C4. This sense of paradigm can be clearly differentiated from the first three clusters discussed above. Perhaps it can also be said that there is the sociological counterpart to the scientific, meta-scientific, and metaphysical clusters. (In the sociological cluster I have found the following talk of paradigms: they are universally recognized scientific achievements (p. 10); they supply scientists with a locus of professional commitment (p. 11); they determine the mode of community life among scientists (p. 93).) In explicating what paradigms are, Kuhn also says they are a seeing of something in a new way (p. 121) and that underlying a new paradigm is a gestalt switch. If there is a connection of this sense of paradigm with the other clusters it must be found in the scientific cluster. But what exactly is the connection? How is a gestalt switch related to paradigms as accepted examples of actual scientific practice which include law, theory, application, and instrumentation, or to paradigms as achievements recounted by textbooks which were sufficiently unprecedented and open-ended to leave all sorts of problems to be solved. It does not seem to be related to these senses of 'paradigm'. I think the connection, if it exists at all, must be found in the first stages of the development of a paradigm in sense C(a). A paradigm. according to Kuhn, has its beginnings in the resolution of discoveries which appear anomalous. Some anomalies are the result of seeing some x in a new way. It is here that gestalt switches might occur. But since many theories can incorporate this discovery by supplying different linguistic characterizations of this x and no paradigm is uniquely associated with a gestalt switch, I do think, however, that to talk of paradigms as determined by gestalt shifts is an extension of meaning not found in the other clusters. Other examples of paradigms that I have classified in this cluster are: a scientist embracing a new paradigm is like a man wearing inverting lenses (p. 121); a gestalt switch is a prototype of what occurs in paradigm shift (pp. 88, 110-111).
The situation resulting from the use of the word 'paradigm' to cover such a large and heterogeneous set of notions is not at all conducive to clarity and leaves Professor Kuhn open to some obvious objections. Some of the arguments in SSR appear implausible on first reading precisely because the average reader is unaware of the transition from one of the meanings of the word "paradigm" to another as the argument progresses. In my discussion of Theses 2, 3, 4, and 5, I will try to point out wherever apropos the ambiguities inherent in the use of the term "paradigm". At times a claim will appear plausible on one reading of paradigm and implausible on another. This analysis of paradigm will particularly prove to be illuminating concerning the resolution of the apparent inconsistency between T4 and T5.
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Notes
{l} The page references are all to Kuhn'S SSR. [Back]
{2} I believe that this sociological aspect is implied in SSR. Also, in my discussion with Professor Kuhn he has considered this to be a very important aspect of paradigms because it brings into focus the existence and role of scientific schools and traditions. See also Toulmin's article, "Conceptual Revolutions in Science," Synthese, XVII, 1 (March, 1967), 75-91, particularly pp. 81-84, where he discusses this ambiguity between the sociological sense of Paradigm and the philosophical aspects which in my discussion would include C1, C2, and C3. [Back]
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